Chapter 34 The High of Madness #2
There was promise in his voice, weighted with implications that made my pulse quicken. But not with dread. With anticipation. With the kind of dark excitement that comes from standing at the edge of a precipice and contemplating the fall.
“How mysterious,” I replied, tilting my head back to meet his gaze. “I’m positively trembling with anticipation.”
Valen’s eyes blazed at my sarcasm, but instead of anger, I saw something that looked suspiciously like approval. As if my defiance was exactly what he’d been hoping for, exactly what he’d been waiting for me to show him.
“You should be,” he said, his voice dropping to that velvet whisper that seemed to resonate in my bones. “Because tonight, I’m going to give you what you sought to take without permission.”
He moved closer, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body, could smell that intoxicating mixture of mountain air and metal and something darker that belonged uniquely to him.
My bound hands rested in my lap, fingers curling involuntarily as he leaned down, bringing his face level with mine once again.
“I’m going to give you my blood.”
My mouth watered instantly. The memory of copper and fire flooded my senses, the divine essence I’d tasted singing its recognition through my veins. My lips parted slightly, breathing becoming shallow as my body remembered the pleasure of consuming divine power.
And then I heard it—a sound that seemed to fall directly into my consciousness. A growl, low and furious and utterly inhuman, resonating through my skull like distant thunder. The sound of my god in chains, watching and disapproving and utterly powerless to intervene.
Death. His fury hit me like a punch to the chest. He knew what was happening, could feel the shift in me. But his warnings no longer worried me, not with Valen’s promise setting me ablaze.
Although, it was curious. Valen made no indication he heard Death’s anger. His attention remained fixed on me, on the way my pupils must have dilated, on the rapid rise and fall of my chest. It was as if he hadn’t heard Death at all.
The growl echoed through me again, more insistent this time, accompanied by chains rattling against stone.
Death’s fury pressed against the edges of my awareness, a cold weight that stood in stark contrast to the heat building between Valen and me.
For just a moment, my attention wavered, pulled toward that familiar darkness, toward the god who had held me when no one else would.
That moment of distraction was all Valen needed.
His hands shot out like striking serpents, gripping my shoulders with bruising force. Before I could react, before I could even process what was happening, he yanked me forward and struck.
His teeth sank into the curve of my neck with predatory precision, finding the exact spot where my pulse beat strongest beneath delicate skin. The pain was immediate—a sharp, tearing sensation that ripped a gasp from my throat and sent lightning crackling down my spine.
The agony transformed with breathtaking speed, pain metamorphosing into something else entirely.
Pleasure—pure, molten, overwhelming pleasure—flooded through me from the point where his teeth pierced my flesh.
It was like having fire injected directly into my bloodstream, like being struck by lightning and discovering that electricity was ecstasy made manifest.
My back arched involuntarily, pressing me closer to him, my bound hands lifting to clutch at the leather of his shirt.
A sound escaped my lips—half gasp, half moan—as waves of sensation crashed over me.
This was beyond anything I had ever experienced, beyond any pleasure I had imagined possible.
It was as if every nerve ending in my body had suddenly awakened, as if I was feeling truly alive for the first time in my existence.
Dimly, through the haze of overwhelming sensation, I heard Valen make a sound of his own—a deep, primal moan that vibrated against my throat.
The sound sent fresh shivers through me, and I found myself leaning into him, offering more of my neck, desperate for him to continue whatever dark power he was working on my willing flesh.
His arms came around me, pulling me against his chest with desperate strength, and I could feel the tension in his body, the way his muscles trembled with restraint.
Or perhaps with his own overwhelming sensation.
Because this wasn’t just affecting me. I could sense his reaction in the way his breathing had turned ragged, in the heat that radiated from his skin, in the possessive grip of his hands.
Then, with what seemed like tremendous effort, Valen tore himself away.
I cried out at the sudden loss, the absence of his mouth against my skin leaving me feeling incomplete, bereft. My head fell back, neck exposed and most likely marked with an imprint of his teeth, blood trickling down in thin rivulets, merging into the black silk of my gown.
Valen sat back on his heels, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he struggled to regain control.
His lips were stained with my blood, dark red against pale flesh, and as I watched, he lifted his thumb to wipe away the excess.
The gesture was almost clinical, but then he slowly pressed that bloodied thumb into his mouth, his black eyes never leaving mine.
The sight sent fresh heat spiraling through me, my body responding to the intimate act with an intensity that should have shamed me. Instead, I found myself watching with hungry fascination, memorizing every detail of the way he savored my essence.
“Do you know,” he said, his voice rough with something that might have been awe, “what happens when a god and mortal exchange blood?”
I tried to speak, tried to form words through the haze of sensation that still clouded my thoughts, but only managed to shake my head. My voice seemed to have abandoned me entirely, stolen away by the overwhelming experience of being consumed by a divine being.
Valen leaned closer, close enough that I could smell my own blood on his breath, could see the way his pupils were blown wide. When he spoke, his words were barely more than a whisper, intimate as a lover’s confession.
“Madness.”
The word hung between us like a promise and a threat combined.
Madness. The price of divine blood, the cost of crossing the boundaries between mortal and god.
I should have been terrified. Should have recoiled from the implications, from the knowledge that what we had just done might destroy what remained of my sanity.
Instead, I felt only need.
Valen must have seen it in my expression because his smile returned, sharp and dangerous and beautiful. Without breaking eye contact, he lifted his own wrist to his mouth.
His teeth were sharper than they had any right to be, gleaming white as they bit down into his own flesh. Dark blood welled immediately, nearly black in the dim light of my cell, and the metallic scent of divinity filled the air.
“Your turn,” he said, extending his bleeding wrist toward my face.
I stared at the offering, at the divine essence that flowed freely from the self-inflicted wound.
Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to refuse, to pull away.
That it was disgusting to want to taste him.
Still, a stronger instinct, one awakened by his blood already flowing through my system, urged me forward.
But before I could move myself, Valen’s free hand came up to grip my jaw with inexorable strength. His fingers pressed against my cheeks, forcing my lips apart, and then his bleeding wrist was against my mouth and there was nowhere to retreat.
The first drop hit my tongue like liquid fire.
The taste was indescribable, nothing like human blood. Sweet and smokey and something indefinably ancient, something that spoke of power and conquest and the passing of eons. This was concentrated divinity, pure essence distilled into liquid form.
And it was magnificent.
Any pretense of resistance crumbled as the divine blood flooded my mouth.
I found myself pressing forward eagerly, my lips sealing around the wounds in his wrist, drinking with desperate hunger.
Each swallow sent new waves of sensation through me, different from the pleasure he had given me but no less overwhelming.
This was transformation, change at the most fundamental level, and I could feel it working on every cell in my body.
I was lost. Lost in the exquisite taste of divinity, in the way his blood seemed to sing as it flowed down my throat.
Vaguely, I was aware of Valen’s other hand stroking my hair, of the approving sounds he made as I fed from him like some human parasite.
But most of my consciousness was focused on the blood itself, on the way it filled empty spaces inside me that I hadn’t even known existed.
This was what I had been missing. This was what I had been craving. And I would drink every drop he offered me, consequences be damned.